


Bruises

by pinkwithoutplot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 23:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8263825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkwithoutplot/pseuds/pinkwithoutplot
Summary: Every single day, Sam is bleeding a little just under his skin.





	

When Sammy was a toddler, he ran full pelt into a coffee table while Dad was in the shower, and winded himself. Dean had scooped him up immediately, but this wasn't the sort of boo-boo which could be shushed away by the soft press of Dean's small mouth. This was serious. When Sam had found his breath again, he'd howled and moaned so loudly that Dad came flying out of the bathroom like the devil himself was giving chase. Dean remembers his heart hammering in his chest, the smell of aloe on Sammy's pajamas at night, and lifting his clothes to watch the hot, red swelling which covered his tiny rib cage, blossom to a deep purple and gradually fade over the weeks through green and yellow until it finally disappeared. But Dean's guilt didn't. He should never have let that happen.  
  
Now Sammy's a man, and bruises are par for the course. His strong body is mottled with them permanently and there's nothing Dean can do to prevent that either. Every single day, Sam is bleeding a little just under his skin. No part of him has escaped unscathed - not even his brain, although when you get bruised there they call it cerebral contusion. Dean knows that. There are other words Dean knows only too well: Hematoma, phagocytosis, blunt trauma, biliverdin, bilirubin. In a strange way, it saddens him that he'll never again see shock and outrage in Sam's eyes like he did that first time he took a real knock.   
  
Dean and Sam check into motel after motel, black and blue and scraped and stiff. Dean helps Sam lift his shirt off on nights when he's really sore, when he's too tired to protest. He dabs at his wounds and smooths cooling lotions on his swellings. Now and then, when Sam's in that shallow place just before sleep, he'll drop a quick kiss on the darkening skin, like his lips might still have that childish, healing magic to them. Other nights, when things get really bad, Dean will bury his face in his brother's neck and suck gently at the tender flesh, dragging the blood to the surface just to see the shape his mouth makes. Just to leave his own seal. He tries not to think of the other words he knows: Love bite. Hickey.  
  
Sam lets him for a while. He will moan - a little pained, a little something else - and Dean will whisper,  
"Is this weird? This is weird isn't it? Oh shit! 'M sorry, Sammy,"

before retreating to his own bed. They never speak about it in the daylight, but it lingers, this thing, long after the bruises fade.


End file.
